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This study aims to examine the effects of pair discussion and individual reading as pre-writing activities on high school students’ argumentative essay writing. For this study, 52 1st grade students in high school participated and were divided into two groups. Group A was asked to write a one-paragraph essay on a first topic after pair discussion and then on a second topic after conducting text reading, whereas Group B was asked to do the text reading first and then the pair discussion. For the analysis, the students’ writings were evaluated in five areas: task completion, organization, grammar, vocabulary, and mechanics. The results reveal that the individual reading activity, rather than the pair discussion, yielded comparatively higher writing scores in all areas except organization. It also made a statistically significant difference in terms of grammar and vocabulary. On the other hand, pair discussion affected organization scores both positively and significantly. The findings imply that, in the Korean EFL situation, providing reading materials in the pre-writing stage is effective for the improvement of accuracy in writing an argumentative essay. Additionally, the use of pair discussion is encouraged for the development of students’ logic in writing.